Lubomír Zaorálek was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic on 29 January 2014. Prior to his appointment as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lubomír Zaorálek was a leading figure in the Czech Parliament, in 2002 – 2006 he was the Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies and later the Deputy Chairman. In 1998 he was elected the Deputy Chair of the Czech Social Democratic Party and since 2002 he was the Party´s Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1996, Lubomír Zaorálek was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic for the first time. In 1990 he was elected to the Municipal Assembly of the City of Ostrava on the ballot of the Civic Forum (Občanské fórum),   as one of its founders and representatives appointed to the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly. At that time he joined the staff of the Philosophy Department of the Ostrava University teaching political philosophy, contemporary philosophy, ethics and Czech political thought of the 19th and 20th centuries.